A journal of the construction of several boats, various fishing activities, as well as musings related to the subject.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Getting Antsy... Gotta Go Bigger

I'm getting frustrated having to wait to resume working on my sailing dingy (8-ball). I started thinking (again) about what I'll be doing next year, and I (once again) changed my mind as to my next boat.

Last time I posted, I was planning to move on to the 15' Glen-L Minuet, which would easily fit in my garage, with plenty of space to work. The only problem is that it would easily fit in the garage, and didn't really have enough room for me inside. The ideal solution would be to move onto a boat like the 36' Glen-L Delphine, like I still hope to tackle some day... but as I've mentioned before... that ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

So instead, I'm thinking that I should go back to my ORIGINAL idea, and build a 18½' Glen-L Tango. Yes, it will still fit in the garage... barely. I will have to evict my wife's car to the other side (the side shortened by 2 feet by my tool bench) for part of the build, and I'll have to rig up a larger rolling platform to drag the beast outside any time I actually want to work on it. The advantage is that there is actually room inside the cabin.... an extra 11" of headroom over the Minuet, and a similar increase in beam and cabin length. Plus, this thing will be quite a bit more sea worthy, in case I ever decide to take it out to the coast. The fact that it provides an extra 600# of displacement (call it 400# of usable load) is a bonus. Sure, the price tag is another $4 - $5 K, but I should be able to live with that, since the build time is similar (~3 years).

Either way, it will be 9 months or so before I would be ordering plans. Stay tuned as I birth this idea.

About Me

Born a Californian, I
prefer to be known as a guy who grew up in the State of Alaska. I have
two bachelors degrees (Civil Engineering and Computer and Information
Science) and have served in the US Army (8th Engineer BN, Fort Hood,
TX). I am married with kids, and have lived in Cary, North Carolina for
the last 14 years.